eBook Category:Horror/Classic LiteratureeBook Description: Doctor Watson is dispatched to gloomy Dartmoor to investigate the savage murder of Sir Charles Baskerville--but even the great detective Sherlock Holmes could not anticipate the dark secrets they will uncover. A monster haunts the dark countryside that surrounds the Baskerville estate, a creature whose existence will challenge the rational beliefs at Holmes's core.

Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late rising in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all night, was seated at the breakfast table. Never a well rested soul, the man known to the public as the greatest living consultant detective and more intimately as my closest friend, stared down at an empty teacup with a face full of strain and heartbreak. A fortnight had barely passed since word had come that his elder brother Mycroft, no less a legend in the enforcement of the law, had died. Holmes said nothing at the time, thanking the messenger with all the correct social gestures before retiring to his room. For two days he remained there, silent behind his chamber door, answering no private or professional calls, until he emerged on the third day. He went about his business, apologizing to his clients for his recent absence, but said nothing of the tragedy. To this day I do not know how Mycroft's end came, nor will I ever intrude with any questions on the matter. His brother's death was his concern alone and he wore it like a heavy mask.

I stood upon the hearth-rug and picked up the stick which our unseen visitor had left behind the night before. Until the discovery of the walking aid, neither Holmes nor I had any suspicion of a visitor at all. We had spent the previous evening at a memorial service for Holmes' brother and even he, usually so attentive to even the smallest detail, had returned with too much gloom in his thoughts to notice any sign of a late evening's calling. It was a fine, thick piece of wood, bulb-headed, of the sort which is known as a "Penang lawyer." Just under the head was a broad silver band nearly an inch across. "To James Mortimer, M.R.C.S., from his friends of the C.C.H.," was engraved upon it, with the date "1884." It was just such a stick as the old-fashioned family practitioner used to carry--dignified, solid, and reassuring.